Mike Dvorkin wants to tell us that Cloud Automation is passe and that Cloud Orchestration is the future. This question seems to be about how you envision control planes that deliver the orchestration.
Is automation just a bunch of scripts that are hacked together into a coherent whole that do Infrastructure stuff ? Then what is Cloud Orchestration that makes it different ?

If cloud automation is passe, then network automation is grandpas abacus.What separates the two?I reckon I would argue that proper abstraction vis a vi primitives.Having programmed distributed bios's using bizarre APIs my entire career, I am dusting off old CS books with some self loathing.We are still paint all networks with the same brush.I stack Internet technologies into enterprises and data centers just because it deals with the problem of the edge we have created better than anything else.Agree with Mike that state is problematic in both automation and orchestration but I think we can find balance in between and have in some cases (Google).The secretary surfing Facebook doesn't need wire rate 100G and never will.Fun topic!

Orchestration is very different than just a bunch of scripts. There is structure and design to it to account for security and to ensure proper operation of the system as a whole. I should blog about this shit.